Radiance Ch. 34

"Thank you so so much, Malakai! I'm gonna tell everyone about this!" Maria exclaimed happily and before the smiling spider boy could blink Maria lunged forwards and hugged him making his large black eyes pop open wide.

Seven felt Wisp doing what felt like backflips in his head before she poured out of his ears like steam and began to orbit the pair, out the corner of his eye he saw Visa cock her head curiously at the odd behaviour of the cloud girl and he leaned in close and whispered in her ear canal, "I think someone is a little jealous that someone got to hug Malakai before her" he said and he heard Visa chuckle softly.

"Well just as long as they don't think they can get away with hugging you too my male, this is all mine, it belongs to me and is for my claws only," she said giving him a possessive squeeze with both her incredibly powerful arms and tail to prove her point.

"I don't think there's going to be any girls dumb enough to try and steal a claw girl's man" he chuckled and she growled softly.

"There had better not be, the lure of a good male can be a powerful thing and it can override sense sometimes," she said and he chuckled and grinned up at her.

"Are you saying I overrode your better judgement?' he said with a grin on his face.

Visa glanced down at him and growled deep enough that he felt it vibrate through his entire body like he was sitting on a vibrating chair.

"You overrode all my senses not just my judgement," she said and Seven chuckled.

"Good to know that this little human can make his big strong claw girl turn into a senseless mess," he said playfully making her growl.

"Don't tease me human or I'll throw you over my shoulder and drag that pretty arse of yours up those stairs and then we'll see who winds up as a senseless mess" she snarled softly, Seven fixed her with his best shit-eating grin before running two of his invisible hands over her rear end that was planted in the sofa making her gasp and her pupils widen before instantly narrowing dangerously.

"Think we both know who'd win that one sugar tail," he said playfully.

"We'll see human, we'll see," she said with a grin of her own now.

Maria thanked Malakai and the group as a whole before heading out now proudly wearing her newly repaired and Arachnakai enhanced coat just as Visa looked like she was about to make good on her promise to snatch Seven off his feet and carry him upstairs Wisp came shooting in from one of the other rooms and started doing laps around him before morphing herself into a variety of different shapes that looked like hands doing a follow me motion.

"Err I think she wants you to follow her my love," Visa said looking like she was getting dizzy from trying to keep her eyes on the rapidly circling cloud girl so Seven did along with the now slightly dizzy Visa.

What they found surprised the hell out of both of them, it appeared that they'd missed a door when inspecting the property, it was hidden at the back of a walk-in pantry just off the kitchen and as Wisp vanished through the gap Seven opened it to find a staircase leading down into the darkness.

Locating an oil lamp Seven lit it and followed Wisp down into the basement, she seemed to be emanating her own light as she floated around down there so she was rather easy to see, the basement was a little cluttered with junk that had either come from the builders or the previous owners of the house but what had got the young cloud girl all exited was sat in the centre of the room and made Seven smile.

It was a robot like the type that they had seen floating around the wasteland, it was large and green with a circular shaped head that was mounted atop what appeared to be a rocket thruster of some kind, curled up at its sides like the legs of a dead spider were three multi-segmented arms that had an assortment of tools or rather weapons mounted to them.

One held what appeared to be a plasma rifle by the faint green glow coming from it, a second had what appeared to be a buzzsaw and the third just had a claw-like three-pronged hand.

"It's a Sargent Gutsy," Visa said surprising Seven wh glanced at her curiously.

"I've heard humans refer to them by this name," she said proudly as the fact that she knew something about human tech that Seven didn't should actually surprise anyone given his lack of memories.

"Think you can lift it?" Seven asked knowing that if she couldn't he would he'd just rather avoid the painful headache if he could.

Visa made a humph noise as if she was disappointed in her human's ack of faith in her vast strength and with surprising ease, she hoisted the robot up into her arms leaving its three arms to dangle free like she was holding a dead metallic octopus.

Visa waddled her way with her awkward charge back up the stairs to deposit it in the lounge before their surprised companions, Gregory was on it before it even settled properly on the floor, "Holy shit where the hell did you find a Sargent Gutsy?" he asked pawing over it.

"Wisp found it in the basement, think you can fix it?" Seven said leaning over to peer at it.

"We have a basement?" Ven asked and Seven nodded.

"Yeah I can fix it, honestly doesn't look like there's much wrong with it other than a few corroded power connectors and this looks like one of the ones that were converted to run on hydrogen rather than regular fuel, it's third-gen which is good," Gregory said.

"Hydrogen?" Seven asked and Gregory nodded.

"During the fuel wars nations began to realise that no matter if they secured what fossil fuels were left they were going to run out, hence the huge push into both nuclear and other fuels, but it was too little too late, but one of the benefits of this is things like this, it has a hydrogen-powered drive which thanks to this nifty cracker it can pull it right out of the water itself, so we can easily power this thing with dirty water with zero issues because the rads will not affect it," Gregory said.

Even while he was talking the young man was already opening panels and setting to work, fortunately, one of the things that had survived the crash was his steadily growing tool kit and once Ven had passed it to him the young man really set to work and in only half an hour he had the Sargent Gutsy back in working condition which really made Wisp happy.

As the jump jet engine sputtered and fired uplifting the robot up off the floor where it began to hover while Wisp assumed control of it, "Ahhh that is so much better!! No offence Seven as much as i am indebted to you for letting me ride around in your head there is only so much looking under a claw girl's tail a girl can take before it drives her nuts" Wisp said in the rather deep and masculine voice of the Sargent Gutsy.

"Ahh don't be shy Wisp you know you love it as much as me," Seven said playfully and Wisp chuckled to herself.

"Seven I don't think there's a guy out there who could love it as much as you do and that's not a negative for Visa I'm sure but for us non claw loving girls it can be a bother," she replied making Seven laugh.

"I'm not exactly happy about you having a close-up view under my tail either you know, that's for my beloved male's eyes only" Visa snarled huffily.

Wisp ignored and floated over to Malakai who was watching her very curiously and nervously by the way he was wringing his hands as she got closer.

"Hello Malakai its good to finally get to speak to you in person so to speak, I'm Wisp and yes I know this isn't my real body I'm just controlling it, my real body is dead and this is me now, I'm a non-corporeal human and while I do hope to have a replacement body of my own one day right now I'll take whatever I can get," she said offering him the clawed hand to shake.

The nervous-looking Arachnakai boy glanced at Seven as if seeking reassurance from him so Seven strode over and smiled at him, "Don't worry Malakai I know she seems kinda scary but she's really not, she's a really nice girl and she's the one who got me out of the airship where we were both trapped" he said.

Malakai nodded and he reached out and very timidly shook her offered hand, "Hello Wisp it's nice to meet you properly," he said in a soft voice.

"Wow you are so much prettier when seen through a pair of eyes of my own, those colours of your fur is just so much more vivid and sharp," Wisp said moving the three large visual sensors that acted like eyes and were basically just really advanced camera on stalks that sat on top of her head.

Malakai just seemed to freeze up and Seven noticed both a blush pass over his very pale skin as well as his fur fluff up all over his legs and body as a shot of embarrassment hit him, "Y-Y-You t-t-think I-I-i'm p-p-pretty!?" he exclaimed glancing between Seven and Robo Wisp as if trying to see if she was trying to wind him up.

"I'm a non-coproeal girl Malakai that doesn't mean I'm blind, I'm a girl who knows pretty when I see it and trust me I see it right now a whole lot of it and I like what I see," she said with a confidence that utterly astounded Seven and by the stunned look of the rest of the group all of them too.

"W-W-Well I-I-I err umm thank you very much, n-n-no-one's ever called me pretty before" Malakai stammered shyly with his little mandibles twittering as he spots and his cheeks blushing a neon pink colour that was rapidly becoming a deeper red.

"Look before I start making feel uncomfortable or on the spot Malakai I want you to know I don't expect anything from you I just wanted you to know how I felt, I've seen how easy it is to lose everything in this world and how fragile everyone and everything and having been around Seven as long as I have now I've realised that bottling things up gets you nothing but regrets, so I don't want to regret anything anymore, so yeah I want you to know I think you are beautiful and I am very attracted to you, you are an incredibly beautiful man and I want you to know that, so please don't feel uncomfortable by this or think I expect anything from you or that this group does either," she said.

"W-W-Wow t-t-thank you so so much Wisp, that's so incredibly nice of you," the young Archnakai man said looking like he was about to burst into tears at the kindness and directness of her words to him.

But before Wisp had a chance to respond to him or to attempt to comfort him there was a knock at the door and Seven moved to open it to find Shepherd standing there, "Ahh good you guys seem to have settled......where the hell did that Sargent Gutsy come from?" she exclaimed noticing the floating robot hovering next to Malakai.

"We found it in the basement and Gregory fixed it up and now Wisp is using it," Seven said.

"Wait, Wisp is in there?" she exclaimed looking between them.

"Hi, Shepherd," Wisp said waving her clawed hand at her.

"Holy shit she really can hi-jack tech that's gonna be useful, well we've set up the meeting so if you guys can follow me I'll take you there now, damn I wish we'd seen the robot first we could have used a Sargent Gutsy," she said.

"Well if we find her an upgrade I'm sure Wisp would be more than happy to give it up to you and hell I'm sure Gregory would even upgrade it for you, the boy is an absolute genius with anything made of metal, he fixed that thing in half an hour," Seven said.

Shepherd looked thoughtful and then she nodded and smiled, "Yeah that would cool, thanks alright come on guys let's go," she said and with that, the group left the house and set off into the town.